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In the past week, Europe has resembled something like school playground. Due to David Cameron using his Veto last week, the French have lashed out with several, vindictive and frankly, rather childish statements about the state of the British economy; despite the fact that Angela Merkel pointed out that Britain still had an important role to play in helping to sort out the Eurozone Crisis. It’s worth pointing out I feel, that in a note of poetic irony, Standard & Poor are expected to downgrade the French credit rating within days, whilst Britain’s remains as stable as ever. There have been calls from many influential people, that to ensure the survival of the Eurozone, that Greece should be allowed to bow out gracefully, and with as much dignity as it can muster.

The European summit on Friday 9th December 2011 was the day David Cameron became the first British leader to veto a European treaty. The UK Prime Minister vetoed changes in the European Union’s Lisbon treaty aimed at tackling the Eurozone financial crisis, declaring it was not in Britain’s national interest.

A new fiscal deal to bind the Eurozone did emerge from the European Union summit. We see the prospect of all 26 of the 27 members of the European Union agreeing to a new fiscal deal in a move towards a more disciplined economic policy. EU countries are required to present their national budgets to the European Commission. Stricter budget rules will be installed in the national constitutions of those countries abiding to this agreement. This separate agreement, will see the 26 EU countries finances tied together to solve the Eurozone financial crisis leaving the UK to stand alone. Read the rest of this entry →

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The Prime Minister is in the unenviable position of trying to appease Tory backbenchers whilst trying not to alienate Europe; I must say I’m not sure he’s succeeding at both. There seems to be a huge wave of support for his stand veto at the Euro summit on Thursday, many will see this as the defiant stand of a strong Prime Minister, finally listening to the views of the people who elected him. There has however been a considerable backlash despite the support of some members of the press as well as the majority of Conservative MPs. The Deputy Prime Minister has decided that he is angry about it, and this, if the Mail is to be believed (don’t laugh), could, more than the question of AV, be the make or break issue for the Coalition; this is something that Danny Alexander has strongly denied. Read the rest of this entry →

A black cloud still looms over Europe and yet any economic agreement seems like an unlikely task among the European leaders to save the EU from this debt crisis. A series of negative events hasn’t helped with the confidence in Europe either. Economic integration is a fundamental part of the Eurozone but we have witnessed the obliteration of the economies of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Last week, the Bank of England governor Mervyn King told a committee of MPs that growth didn’t seem likely in the Eurozone. He predicted that the Eurozone would shrink both in the first quarter and in the first quarter of 2012. Read the rest of this entry →

And so Mr Berlusconi, with his car salesman smile and his suspiciously dark hair, has gone, he has been an absolute gift too to the satirists; Italy I doubt, will dwell too much on his resignation. As Hugh Denis said on Friday night’s ‘The Now Show’ on Radio 4, how can you put much trust in a man who had to endure 53 confidence votes since 2008? Clearly investors did not have a great deal of faith in the man; one only has to look at the eye watering 7% interest on government loans and the frenzied activity on the market to see how uncertain people have been about the Italian economy. With similar events witnessed in Greece earlier this week, with the exiting on George Papandreou, and with it looking increasingly likely that Mario Monti will succeed Mr Berlusconi, it is entirely possible that we bear witness to dawning of a new era for the Technocrat. Some readers may recall that I suggested that Berlusconi went months ago, I only wish that my spooky ability to predict events in Italian politics was transferable to the Eurolottery! Read the rest of this entry →